Five Ways Morgana Found Redemption
by Fiaba
Summary: "He almost hears the inner side of destiny buckling like the crack of a whip, the pieces falling and the puppet strings they're all hanging on loosening one by one." Five different ends Morgana meets. Various pairings and characters.
1. Merlin

**a/n: I'm straying from my familiar territory of Arthur/Morgana oneshots and having a stab at exploring Morgana's relationship with some other characters too. First up is Morgana/Merlin in this mini series. **

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><p><strong>Five Ways Morgana Found Redemption<strong>

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><p><em><strong>M e r l i n <strong>_

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><p>When they meet it's in battle, and she's trying to kill him. She's even diverted from her pursuit of Arthur's blood because the screaming fury, the absolute biting sting of betrayal and the horror that everything could've been <em>different<em> is overwhelming, and it's like smoke suffocating her until she just can't breathe.

He's magic and he's staring at her with eyes that glow the same gold hers do, but he's not looking at her like the kin they are, he's watching her like some terrible beautiful wild animal and maybe that's right, because he knew her when she was young and safe and now she is deadly, and she is out for his blood.

They fight in the castle like they always do and she wants to say she's strong enough to beat him but she knows she's not the moment she launches her first spell. She's remembering the boy who came to Camelot and gaped at her at the feast (yes, she saw him looking) and the young man who helped her save her Druid boy, but she's also remembering the traitor who put poison down her throat and left it to fester in her heart until she grew like a tree twisted in on itself so the only fruit she gave was poisoned too. And now she sees the old man who left her for dead in the forest and she knows it was him, trying to kill her once again.

Everything makes sense now, and she's not crying, she's _not_, because she doesn't care. But her eyes are blind now and she doesn't know what she's doing, and Merlin is crying too because he sees her tears and he knows what they're for. He is kin and he tried to kill her, and now she wants to repay that favour. But he is strong and they fight like titans clashing at the dawn of time until she shatters at the force of it, and she's lying broken on the ground and waiting for him to end it.

But he kneels at her side with his sad blue eyes and he cries "I wish you could understand. You don't have to be this way" and she looks up at him with tired, tired eyes, consciousness just touching her mind like scattered raindrops clinging to cobwebs and she murmurs back.

"You made me this way."

And she thinks he'll kill her then because if it were the other way round, she'd have done it straight away (she thinks, but it's always different when it's real), but he touches her cold forehead and tells her to leave Camelot. "If you want to be better," he says, "you have to go away and stop all this", and she listens because she's fading, so he swallows and whispers a spell.

Then they're far away beside the apple trees where the hypnotising thrum of Camelot's cruel chessboard built of living pieces can't be heard, and she opens her eyes and breathes, because this is a world away from the sinful path of blood and death she's been walking. She realises what he's offering, and it's a chance she doesn't deserve, but then she sees the guilt in his pale face and realises this is for him too; this is his own atonement for being so wrong.

"You killed me" she says, and his eyes are downcast so she can see the long, spidery lashes curl against his cheek. She looks away when she starts to remember how much she liked the boy who came to Camelot from far away, and who tripped over his own boots and couldn't polish armour to save his life. It's hard to remember he would have been her murderer when she sees the sweetness, the simple _goodness _radiating from his very being.

She recognises that fervent desire for the whole world to be just and good because she used to have it too.

Now she wears her suffering like a halo and lets it make her into the avenging, infernal angel she's become. She is so caught up in a glass sphere of destiny that cannot be broken, and yet Merlin's trying to break it for her. He's seen the future but he's tired of being the reason it always comes true, and he's forced a world between Morgana and her dark, dark fate, praying that it will be enough. He is meant to be her destiny but he's already been her doom and he won't be that again.

"I know. I'll never regret anything more, but I'm trying to save you."

She smiles, bitterly, ironically, shaking her head, but she really just wants to sleep because whatever he's done means it's like she's in some soporific bubble that's engulfing her softly, softly, sending her to sweet oblivion.

He leaves her in the golden forest he brought them to just as her eyes fall close. He calls on whatever magic there is in the trees and the earth to watch over her because he wants her better, but she cannot be that while he is still here. She is right: he made her this way, and so he seeks to unmake her by taking her away from everything it is that broke her.

When she wakes he is long gone but she knows she's been safe and watched over somehow, and for a long moment she is silent and unsure. She could be back in Camelot with a snap of her fingers but she knows what Merlin has tried to tell her: if she goes back she is beyond anyone's help. She doesn't know if she should believe him but suddenly she doesn't _want _to go back to the tiresome, terrible fighting that awaits her there.

At first she was doing it all for other people: for the innocents who suffered wrongly, for Mordred, for Morgause. But now they're all gone and she realises she hasn't a hope in hell of reaching her _goal_ because her goal doesn't exist. It's just her, chasing the dust, angry, bitter, and so _so _hurt.

So she stays away and thinks of Merlin telling Arthur that she's not going to harm him now, and smiles a smile that's very nearly real. She doesn't know where she is but she knows she's going to stay. To be together with all the other pieces on the chessboard just turns it all into a game of destiny that nobody can win until one king stands alone in his war-torn kingdom. It is like a pile of firewood waiting for a stray spark, and the only way to avoid the fire is by being gone.

And so she stays in her forest of gold, and there the cracks heal.

o-o-o-o-o

She meets him by the apple tree one day, and it's been a long time. This time it's she who mutters the spell and then they're somewhere else.

They're in a little inn somewhere; some town near the sea where the salt tang in the air makes her think of foreign lands. She's more beautiful than ever now the scars have faded and the dark cloak is cast off. He's almost just the same, but he's so _happy_ that it nearly makes her jealous. She can never be that happy because she's still a broken thing that's been carefully mended, not something new. Some things can't be forgotten but at least they're now forgiven.

He tells her of Arthur's exploits and she can hear it without anger now. She smiles a little smile and thinks of the golden-haired boy she left behind, wistful, thinking of the future she might have had if things were different. But this is as good as she could ever have hoped for and she's thankful; Merlin nearly broke her but Merlin saved her too, and they are two sides of the same coin now. She's no queen and she's no heroine, but maybe this way she won't be the murderess in the stories they tell about the golden king and his golden age.

Before he leaves he asks her "are you better?", cautiously, almost scared to know the answer and it's obvious he still doesn't know if he's done the right thing. So she pauses, smiles and rises. She leans in and kisses his cheek, a soft, soft touch that says she's moved on.

"I'm fine" she replies, one corner of her mouth quirking in a half-smile, "I'm just fine".

"Will you… will you ever come back to Camelot?" he asks, and she knows he doesn't know whether he wants the answer to be yes or no. He doesn't want to shatter the fragile peace she's built around herself here, but still he _misses _her, misses the old her, and he hopes that she's back. But she's not back; she can never be that girl she was again, because that would mean going back to when the storm was brewing and she's tired of weathering storms.

"One day I'll see you again," she says, not quite answering the question she was asked but he somehow knows anyway.

It's not perfect but it's a slice of redemption for them both.


	2. Morgause

**a/n: My great thanks go to my reviewers, who make me immeasurably delighted :] ****The next (short) instalment of this series is Morgana/Morgause, the second end Morgana meets. Oh, and if I forgot to say it earlier, **_**Merlin **_**is not mine.**

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She didn't mean for things to be this way.

She started off as a defender of the innocent, an upholder of justice. She started off _good_. But then she saw more and more of the wrong in the world and she realised she couldn't fight all that wrong with _good._ The wrongness would eat her up and she would have achieved nothing.

She goes to war a tigress, all fire and blood until the bitter end. She fights in the name of all she's lost and all the people who've died unjust deaths, and for a while she's winning. She takes the castle and steals its crown and burns the Pendragon banner with the smoke rising like a victory cry to the heavens. She sits upon her traitor's throne and smiles her traitor's smile. _Morgause_, she thinks, _I've made her proud_.

Once she would have abhorred her own actions. Once she would have been appalled at the blood spilled for her cause. But those days are gone, so very gone, and this is all that's left of her. She's got so many battle scars there's not much left that looks like the beautiful fool she used to be. Now she's hell-bent onchanging this _godforsaken_land, and along the way she's lost so much that she can't stop now.

But then they're upon her again like rain on smoking embers, and there's betrayal in their eyes that makes her smile, even as she realises she's gone too far too fast.

Oh, there were always going to be sacrifices.

But now all those sacrifices, those precious, awful sacrifices, have been made and she realises that this is it, this is the end, she can't go back and make it all better now. She faces Arthur and she's the one with the crown, but in the end it's not him who ends it for her (_as if he ever could_). After all, Emrys was always meant to be her destiny and her doom.

But nobody had told her that Emrys was Merlin. She supposes she shouldn't be surprised; it was stupid of her not to even think of him. She supposes she deserves it for being foolishly blinded by distant mocking notions of _class divide_and _servitude_ and thinking he was nothing more than a boy. Oh, how wrong she's been. He's tried to kill her once before and she knows that he'll sacrifice everything else for Arthur, no matter what the cost. She knows it's because of him that she's this way, that she's dying alone with the remnants of her hard-fought throne smashed like coloured glass on the merciless floor.

They don't know where she is. They know Merlin caught her with a blow that she won't survive, but she won't give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry at the end. She has enough strength left to stop her giving them her broken body to desecrate, but she doesn't think she can stop the tears as her breath becomes shallower and her limbs grow colder. Her soul is desperately crying for someone to be with her now, but there's no one left. There is nobody left to care that she's dying, and it's all been for nothing.

Lots of people have died before her and she thought it would be easy. She thought living was harder, almost envied the ease with which Morgause, Uther, _Mordred_had slipped away, pale faces softened in the peaceful embrace of death.

But she doesn't want to go like this. She is defeated, destroyed; she's the loser in this war she raised from the shadows herself. She wants to win for the sake of everyone she watched succumb to injustice and cruelty, but it's so _so_ over for her now. She's just another piece on the chessboard that's been taken by the knights, and for all she thought she was playing the Queen, she's really just a pawn.

_I'm dying alone_

She's in the forest, she thinks, and there are mighty elder trees around her, but their leaves are already decaying on the earth because it's autumn and life is going to sleep for the cold months. She doesn't really like the idea of dying in the autumn because everything dies in autumn, and now she's going to fall like just another scarlet leaf to be buried in a year of snow, lost to the dust of time and passing until nobody even remembers she was ever there. They'll burn away her memory and paint it over with golden dragons on blood red velvet, and it will be as if she had never fought and lost at all.

She wants to live because she's still angry and she hasn't got all the things she wanted, and Arthur's King and it's a bitter taste in her mouth to say that he was better than her all along. She rolls on the cold ground and opens her eyes wide to take in her last sight. The indifferent sky is washed white above her, not a glimpse of blue. There's no hope of sunshine today. Tears mark her cheeks in silent, bitter tracks as she starts to give in. So this is death: death is loneliness and fear, like a hunted animal in the forest, but that's what life is too for her now there's no one left. It seems, then, that death is no different, but-

"Sister."

That voice.

That voice is not real, because that voice was stopped by her own hand. That voice cannot be real, because Morgana has no one left in the world who can make her heart leap in hope. But then there are soft fingertips at her temple brushing her dark hair aside. There's a beautiful face and pale locks of hair and magic that's reaching out to hers.

Morgana tries to speak, parts her lips to say she's sorry she failed, sorry she didn't do the things she promised she would do. Didn't pay back her sister's life debt. But Morgause just smiles, and Morgana still can't work out if she's real or not, but it's her sister and she's missed her sister, the only one in the world who can love _all_of her because they are one and the same. She knows others have loved her, knows that Arthur would have died for her and Uther too, but neither of them _knew_her, neither of them could accept her and this is why she is a tragedy.

"All is well, sister, and we are together once more. Leave Arthur to sit under his heavy crown and mourn his ruined kingdom. You've done enough. Come with me. All is well."

This is why, as her breath leaves her, the only salvation Morgana can find is in the sweet, sweet arms of her beloved sister, the only one who ever knew her, and now the only one who could ever save her.

Morgause made her, and Morgause will keep her.

_Forever_.


	3. Mordred

**a/n: Thanks to all who keep reading. Introducing the third end Morgana meets: Morgana and Mordred. Still no claims on _BBC Merlin_.**

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><p><strong>M o r d r e d<strong>

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><p>In the end it is so easy.<p>

They have swords and they have shields. The golden dragon rears on their cloaks but it is all a charade; they play valiant knights and they swing their blades but they may as well be wooden for all it matters. She comes to Camelot in all her fire-and-ice vengeance, a sordid army of worthless soldiers she's tricked some arrogant puppet king into handing over for her use. But they are just her toy soldiers and they aren't the ones that matter. She doesn't care how many of them die, as long as she gets what she wants.

She's gone too far for mercy now.

At her right hand is the boy with the blue, blue eyes, but he is less of a boy today. He's tall now, lean and wiry, but the eyes are still the same frightening, soul-searching blue. There's ice in those eyes, but they look on her with love because she is everything to him, just as he is to her. They have no one left to care for but each other and they share dreams of a world that's better than the one that burns under Pendragon rule.

They ride to Camelot amid torches of blue fire and the black sky is starless, the lights of the night hiding from the sin that is about to bleed through the citadel. Mordred looks to her as they approach, and she hears him in her head.

"_Take your destiny, Morgana."_

It is time. She nods once, curtly, steeling herself. She knows to be wary, knows she cannot trust herself not to stumble into the _stupid _weakness of emotion. Sometimes she sees one familiar face, one smile she used to return, and that's all it takes to send her reeling into doubt, and doubt is not something she can afford. She does not have time for doubt.

"Go. I will see you when all is done, Mordred." She pauses, glances at him, and sees the calmness in him. He is never afraid and he never doubts. He has grown like a stalagmite, ever sharper and ever icier, compassion and warmth leeched out of him with every year that passes. She knows it's not his fault; he's only ever known persecution and loss. He's been passed around from guardian to guardian like an unwanted gift, and only she has ever stayed constant for him. She loves him like the son she is destined never to have.

He is most of the reason she is doing all this, because in truth she's always acted for the sake of other people. She needs someone to be courageous for, or she has no courage. She needs someone to be outraged for or she withers into silence. She is a warrior who needs a cause to fight, and that'ss why she cannot look back now. Her white horse snorts as they pass the gates and Mordred smiles, cold, always cold, and he takes his detachment of her army away, reinforcing them with his furious, blazing magic as they brush away the Pendragon soldiers like smoke in the wind.

Morgana reaches the heart of Camelot first. She faces Merlin, she _destroys _Merlin, because after all he is her destiny, but he _shall not _be her doom. She takes a thin pleasure in Arthur's horror and grief when he sees his old friend's broken body, his fury at her part in it. He runs at her in a rage, his anger the only thing that's ever swamped his ridiculous sense of honour and loyalty. He never did understand that nobody could be truly loyal to anyone but themselves. This time, this time Merlin's lost, and that means Arthur's lost. She wonders briefly if he ever found out just how much his foolish, humble servant had given for him.

She halts Arthur with a casual flick of her wrist. She's sure this time; she's not swayed by his beautiful, beautiful face and the agonising memories that surge like flames in winter when she sees it. She's locked up her love for Arthur Pendragon in a little box and scorched it, smashed it, utterly brutalised it, until all that remains is a lust for his crown.

"I'm sorry for the welcome, Arthur, it hardly befits a king. But you won't be that for much longer."

She doesn't kill him straight away; she holds him before her, a few inches above the stone underfoot, and walks around him, watching critically. She comments indifferently that Mordred's probably killed Guinevere by now, because she told him to make sure she was wiped out like the backstabbing, self-righteous little _irritant_ that she is. Arthur roars his fury at that, and it's so easy to play him, to make him dance to her tune and give her all the sadistic pleasure she thinks she wants.

But then she starts to feel the prickles of guilt that somehow never cease to plague her. She sees the proud curve of his Pendragon jaw and his defiant eyes, even now they've come so far. There's magnificence in his defeat and it's a taste like poison (and doesn't she know about poison) to see it. It's enough to make her put him out of his misery quickly, her appetite for his suffering suddenly gone.

When he's dead it's not the jubilation she expected. She feels hollow, empty, and wonders if this is what Mordred's done to himself. Even she still calls it a sin to kill another, and she thinks she feels her soul being bent a little more out of shape now she's got Arthur's blood on her hands, because after all, his blood was never so very far from hers. She kneels like a child at his side, her black dress pooled about her as she touches his handsome, still, familiar face, _still _magnificent to the bitter end. There are no smiles and victory cries here. He's a dead king now and that makes her a queen, but why does it still _hurt?_

She's almost crumbling at his side and she wants to cry, but then the high wooden doors swing open with an echoing slam that makes her leap to her feet, and then she sees blue eyes. Mordred walks sedately to her side and she knows he knows exactly what it is that's running through her mind, because he _always _knows. Impatiently he gestures at her, and it's as if he's flicking away the surfacing heartache left in her because her flaring emotions suddenly cease like ripples evaporating on still water.

"Don't cry, Morgana, we're nearly at the end," he says, that voice so pure and yet so filled with dark, dark power, like the wingbeats of a midnight owl in the empty sky. She takes his hand and smiles, the lost king forgotten.

"Never leave me," she murmurs, pulling his slender frame into a tight hug. He returns her embrace readily, but still so distantly, and yet again she thinks how he could be sculpted from ice, perfect, frozen and utterly utterly untouchable. But no matter what, she will never stop loving him. She's always loved too hard.

"It's time. This is the time of magic," he sighs, and she watches as he turns, wordless, movements so tiny that he scarcely raises one pale, delicate hand, and sets the Pendragon insignia alight, iridescent flames that leap and scream their glee. This is as close as Mordred gets to expressing his deepest emotion.

Mordred finds someone who can crown her Queen in some masquerade of an official ceremony. As if there's anything official in killing the King and sitting in his throne, all his best and bravest dead in the courtyard while she smiles under a golden crown that gives her everything she asked for.

"_I crown you Morgana, Queen of Camelot"_

Mordred is still at her right hand, standing stoic but proud as she accepts the crown of Camelot and knowing that this is it, this is _change _and the ghosts of the past are about to be exorcised. Morgana's won and this is the time of magic: she'll be cruel at first but it's only so they know she's here to stay; she'll win their hearts later because she's beautiful and she's magical and so sweetly enchanting when she wants to be. For now it's enough. She sets about changing everything, proving that yes, you _can _change the world.

There's guilt every now and then, for she is not cruel by nature, but merely by what the world has made her become. She is a victim too, because Uther left the marks of his rule like whip marks scorched across her soul and she learnt tyranny from a tyrant. But with Mordred next to her she knows she can do this, and she'll make the world everything she wanted it to be. For all her crimes she still wants to make it a better world, and that's what she will do.

She's looking in the eyes of her strange, special Druid boy and she knows she can redeem all her sins.


	4. Gwaine

**a/n: This is, I will admit, the wild card of the set. I ship Arthur/Morgana at heart, and yet for some reason I experimented here with Morgana/Gwaine and really enjoyed it, strangely. Hope you don't find it too weird, out of character or unbelievable, and let me know what you think about the pairing, because I really don't know what to think... :)**

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><p><strong>G w a i n e<strong>

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><p>"I'll still try to kill you, you know," she says, her voice a low, dangerous thrum as she pushes him back against the stone wall. He smiles that <em>frustrating<em> smirk, the one that means he never seems afraid, no matter how many awful things she puts him through, and yes, it's always her that makes his life difficult, just as she makes Arthur's and Leon's and Merlin's a living hell. He's in the same category as them in her mind; she files him away on her 'kill on sight' list, but she knows it's stupid because the reality is he's pranced his way out of that category like a fox out of a snare, _always_ in that annoying, evade-all-danger way.

He's different from the others because _they _don't come to her when no-one's looking and feel the strange buzz of _this is our destinies shattering_, because they are happy to wear the chains of destiny and allow themselves to follow their oh-so-simple good-and-evil fight.

But _he _knows. He knows there's more to life and more to people than just good and evil. He knows it's not always just a matter of life and death and who's right and who's wrong. He gets that sometimes no one's right at all. And he's always got that _infuriating _smile and he can still make out the light that's left in her and she's never too much for him. And all that's why she can't give him up.

She's already lost everything good she ever had and she's used to living without the things she wants, but somehow he's become her weakness and it's downright _weird._

"Gwaine slain yet again? I think you'd miss me," he says, _always _so carefree (_how_ can he be that light-hearted?), and he lets her scrabble at his clothing, that smile never slipping, pleased that she's on the prowl, hunting, and hunting _him_. He's a knight and he's brave and he's loyal above all else, but she is a taste of the most addictive kind of betrayal and he can't give her up. Gwaine was born for fun and adventure and he cannot even find it in himself to feel guilty that he's doing this, that he's got one hand knotted in her sinfully dark hair and it's seven shades of bad, but then it's seven more shades of good and that's enough for him.

"I said I'd _try_; maybe I won't succeed just yet," she retorts coolly. "Take that off." She tugs at his chainmail and his hands go up to oblige while she hurls his red Pendragon cloak to the ground, distaste evident in her harsh expression. She kicks it away, burying the dragon insignia in the dust, angry at the blatant reminder that he's Arthur's and that means he's the enemy. Angry because yet again she's got one foot in someone else's door. Why, she wonders, why is it that her life is one endless conflict where she can never feel that what she's doing is truly right? Why the things she wants are always the things that block the way to other things she wants, until she's so confused that she doesn't know whether to kiss or kill.

She's scared on the inside at how she's been cast to sea without a mast or sail and how she's _stirred,_ moved far more than she should be by his infectious _there's fun to be had_ (how is it that he's never concerned?) and it's so _annoying_, but her fingers on his chest and in his amazing, amazing hair strip her of her anger and her fear and she fuses her lips to his, his back against the wall and held insistently there by her darting, restless hands.

They don't say anything more for a long while, but soon enough it's her back that's pressed against the wall and he's taking her to screaming heights that no one else can even come near. This is against all the rules and they've crossed so many carefully drawn lines in the sand that now there's no telling which footprint is hers or his. She knows a little touch of euphoria with him, and he revels in the blazing fire he _always _dares to touch, and all they can do is hope they don't get burnt.

But afterwards when he's holding her up and she's finally quieted, tooth and claw cast away, she's scared again. Her cheek is against his chest and her hands grasp his forearms, desperately clinging to the fragile peace, and he knows she's tearing herself apart inside. It's not that he's ever hoped to change her just by being with her, because she tells him time again that she won't. But sometimes when they're like this he can't help but think it _has _changed, and she can't help but feel she's starting to sway.

She's always walked that shaky line where right meets wrong, but every time he pushes away the shackles of her own darkness, he sees her shadow falling closer and closer to the lighter side of choice, and he wonders whether it can possibly mean that there's hope for her. Even if she always berates the thought before it's ever spoken, and says that he's a fool.

"You can't fix me", she's told him. Over and over she says she's beyond help, tells him to stop thinking that she can ever be good and kind again when everyone knows she's a flower that's been severed from the tree which kept it beautiful. Her eyes always darken dangerously when he makes her remember what it's like to not be _cruel_.

But this time she's got one hand childishly curled against him and she looks vulnerable in a way she's never been before. Suddenly he's not smiling anymore and he looks straight down at her, willing her to meet his eye.

Unwillingly, she does, the green meeting his light brown, held reluctantly by forces unknown. She becomes unable to look away (why is it that his eyes stay so unworried?) though her brow creases in deep torment. He smiles slightly so she frowns harder, shaking her head.

"There's no hope, Gwaine."

"There's always hope."

It's not that she suddenly believes him, because then she'd be a fool. She knows better than to believe that anyone can make it all better, because she's put her faith there before and it's always been a blind leap that ends in blood.

It's not that he pulls away the shady cobwebs binding her to the darker side of right with one magnanimous kiss, because she doesn't believe in true love. They're not some fairy tale and what they are is perfectly ridiculous because they're _wrong wrong wrong _and they're dancing on destiny's grave, but still. She's looking him in the eye, and she can't help granting him one tiny smile.

She thinks that maybe _there's fun to be had._

And there's always hope.


	5. Arthur

**a/n: ****Well. This is the last way I've had Morgana find her redemption, and true to form I'm back with Arthur/Morgana. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you to all who made it this far! :) **

_- Regarding Elpine's query on Merlin's whereabouts in this chaper, he's around somewhere doing his usual saving-everyone's-lives thing for Arthur, but he just doesn't have much to do with this particular destiny for Morgana, which is why it's a Merlin-lite chapter. _

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><p><strong>A r t h u r<strong>

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><p>She hears of his betrothal to Guinevere and a glass cracks between her fingers. The pieces become tiny knives that cut straight into her pale skin, but she doesn't bother to stop the blood, merely watching as they fall like teardrops to the ground. She tells herself the sting only comes when she thinks of the crown that Gwen will despoil, not the king whose heart she's ensnared. She says she doesn't care how Arthur feels, that it's only the power he has which she covets. But that doesn't quite explain the deep, deep pain that has nothing to do with the cuts on her palm when she thinks of him with a wife.<p>

She knows their love is like a pretty flower arrangement for now. Each leaf and bloom is in the place it's supposed to be, and people admire it and call it beautiful and perfect when they pass by. But that doesn't stop her seeing their tale for the sordid and spoiled truth it will become. She _knows_, anyway, that this is all part of a story that's already been written across the stars, and in the end even the loveliest flowers wither and die.

It's destiny and there's no stopping it.

They're married in the heat of summer and Morgana smashes every glass she has piece by piece until the shelves are stripped clean. She sits in the dark with the broken fragments so disintegrated that now they're just silver dust, harmless and wafting away in the wind. She broods in the silence then, but she smiles because she _knows_. For them, this is the fire of the hottest time of year, but that only means there's not much longer until the leaves drop one by one like ash from a burnt-out torch.

There won't be new flowers when winter comes.

She carries on as ever she did, hunting the demons she's made of her own friends. Somehow it's all for show, though, and her attempts on Arthur's life are ever more half-hearted. She's more intrigued than wrathful now, because Morgause is dead and Mordred's gone, and Uther's cold in his grave while Arthur hasn't touched one single innocent on charges of sorcery since he took his crown.

And she hates to be wrong but Arthur's not his father.

He gets ever closer to making the realm one that finds that _oh so delicate _balance between liberty and control over magic. He knows it's wrong to persecute her kind for the mere nature of their existence, just as it would be wrong to persecute all womankind because they could bear children, or men because they could not. He's not Uther twice over in the way Morgause had insisted he would be and he's not going be the downfall of her kind like Mordred always whispered. He's going to be the best of men instead.

And after everything he still refuses to send his knights to find her.

"I don't want you going after her_", _he says, time and time again, and there's a double meaning in his words because it's easy to pass them off as him not wanting her to hurt his beloved knights, but she knows that's not really true. He won't let them chase her because he doesn't want them to catch her. He hasn't seen her for a long time now, but she already knows. That look he held when they stood eye to eye told her everything she needed to know.

He still wanted to help her, to _mend_ her.

It was only then that she realised how broken she must be if even he still _pitied _her. Secretly she doubts her powers were leeched that day by Emrys, but rather by her own tormented heart refusing to let her harm one head on Arthur's head. She'd fled the castle and gone to the forest and her magic was _fine, _but when she'd faced him and the full sorrow of his hurt eyes, she just couldn't do it.

She hasn't come that close to harming him since, and she wonders whether he ever thinks about why. When Morgause died she did all she could to try and capture Camelot so Arthur would suffer just as she had, and she nearly succeeded. But she's wondering now whether she really has it in her to do that to him when he's _still _in her heart, refusing to budge like the stubborn old thing he is.

Eventually she stops trying altogether, and Arthur gets to tentatively hope his throne is now safe. She lets him. No one hears from her for many months and at first they're all on edge because they think she's storing everything up for her next great strike. She knows this and she lies low, hoping they'll one day understand that she's tired now and doesn't want to play that game.

It's not in her to go quietly, though, and from time to time the need to cause mischief strikes. But instead of inspiring terror, Arthur and Merlin are left first baffled then later amused by the things she does. One year she plants an enchanted chest in the Great Hall and when a hapless servant opens it a hundred voices sing like banshees and won't be quiet until everyone joins in. Another year she makes it snow in the throne room and it doesn't stop for a week, and she leaves her mark as a casual silver "M" drawn in the snow on Guinevere's throne. Arthur snorts with laughter and he prays that this means it's really her and she's finally changed her mind, but Gwen is so unnerved she begs him to send his men to find Morgana straight away. Arthur doesn't speak to her for the rest of the week.

As time goes on Morgana gets less cautious about leaving traces because, for all the bad blood between them, the years have swept it away like the tide washing over the sand, and on Arthur's birthday she comes to the castle herself, unseen, but she leaves a little crystal sphere half-full of silvery water with a wild lily floating on its surface, enchanted to _never _wither away like the other blooms that decorate his marital chambers.

She smiles as she places it by his pillow and inks the same curling "M" on a piece of parchment, leaving it by the lily. She knows he'll know it was her anyway, but in her mind she sees him run his finger over the elegant curve of the ink and she can't resist. But then it's time to go and she sighs and returns to her forest home, content to wait until it's finally time for destiny to let them all be free.

He comes back later from a night of celebration and finds the glittering dome and is quiet for a long moment. He doesn't hear Gwen come in and he starts when she sees it and asks who it's from. He wonders if he should lie because he knows Gwen's paranoia but he sighs and says "it's from an old friend", which makes her purse her lips and say nothing. But the matter's dropped and Arthur puts the lily almost reverently on his writing-table where it almost glows in the half-darkness and he slips the parchment into a drawer, touching the 'M' when he thinks Gwen's not looking.

It's hard to think about Gwen that night when he can almost feel _her_ magic radiating from the sphere, amazing and tempting and so unbelievably Morgana that he feels a bit like he's been taken back to the old days when he had eyes for no-one else. The time when she could walk into a room and he wouldn't be able to _not_ look at her because nobody else could draw his eye like she could. He wonders if this is part of her plan, if she's really just trying to stir things up again, and the years of peace have just been a cruel guise to set him up for an even bigger fall.

But he looks over at the lily and it's just so pure that he knows magic like that could never have worked with ill intent. He's a better judge than his father and he knows better than to leap into a blind frenzy at the first sight of magic in the way Uther did, because if Morgana's fall has taught him anything it's that magic, like swords and crossbows, do no harm unless in the hands of someone who wishes to abuse them. He knows this is a piece of her heart and it's her saying _forgive me and_ _all is forgiven,_ and just because she's asked he does it without a moment's hesitation.

"Can you take those away?" Arthur says to a servant in the morning when he sees the dried out sunflowers that haven't lasted the week. He sits at his table and touches the cool crystal of Morgana's lily-sphere and he wonders what's changed, because he can't stop thinking about her and he feels the bowstring of fate starting to tighten once again.

She senses it too and she closes her eyes in the ominous wind and prays this time they'll emerge whole. They're heading for a collision and when that happens it's so volatile that getting burnt is too, too easy, and she's afraid this time it's Arthur who's going to catch alight.

Arthur is as happy as the rest when he finds Lancelot's returned, but there's that whisper of disaster in the air too, and it's not surprising. That man's story was somehow incomplete and no matter how many times he is placed upon a funeral pyre he still has more roles to play in their tale. Arthur cannot say no to the most noble of his knights and welcomes him as an old friend. Guinevere reacts with courtesy and affectionate detachment, and Arthur thinks all is well. He thinks this is the time when lost things are returned and maybe that means _she _will return to him as well, and they will all be healed once more.

Of course, that's not going to happen because fate has already decreed they all suffer so there's a story to tell one day, and that story will make them heroes and villains and it'll forget the realities of the _goodandevil_ they all are. It hurts like a knife to the heart when he enters Gwen's chambers and finds _him_ with her; it's like the past is back to mock him. It's been going on for longer this time, he realises, and then he feels foolish for not having noticed before so they all could have started putting the pieces back much sooner. She's no more eloquent this time than the last and she's distraught, wringing her hands as she falls at his feet.

"Arthur, I'm sorry- Arthur, please, Arthur, I don't- I'm sorry, please" she says it over and over but it never make any more sense and both of them know that this time it's the end of him-and-her.

"No," he says. "No. No more. Enough." But he's older now and he doesn't launch himself at the man who took his wife, and this time he knows that there's nothing to be gained here, only three hearts ready to be broken. So he leaves her in her room full of wilted flowers, scorched in the last heat of summer.

He turns his back on the castle and rides away, faster and faster as if the wind battering past can peel away the suffering. The open grassland calls to him, the forest even louder. He knows he's meant to go there now and when he reaches the boughs of the forgiving birches, he almost hears the inner side of destiny buckling like the crack of a whip, the pieces falling and the puppet strings they're all hanging on loosening one by one.

He doesn't know where she is, but he knows she'll know he's there. She's like a spirit of the forest now, and she hears him coming long before the willow rustles as he thunders past. It's been years and all he's heard from her are silver 'M's drawn in snow and ink, but it doesn't matter. They both know they're so far beyond their old squabbles that they don't even need to raise those ghosts to move on.

She meets him as the first rain of autumn begins to fall, and she smiles because she knows.

"I-" he starts, but finds he doesn't know what to say now he's with her after so long. "I got your gift," he says instead, and she laughs.

"Which one? I personally liked the snow, myself. I bet the royal rump was cold by the time it stopped."

Arthur laughs, almost incredulous that she can be so free, so relaxed, but it's an easy sound, one that hasn't been heard in a long time. "Yes. Yes, thanks for that one. Didn't make me look foolish at all."

"Oh, Arthur, you've never needed my help for that." She rolls her eyes and he thinks they're even more green now they're in the earthy forest and he smiles, but this time sadness works its way in when he remembers.

"No. I suppose not." She knows immediately what he means and sobers, pursing her lips. She hesitates before she puts her cool hand in his, and he just looks down at their fingers and it's so strange, after all this time they're linked again, together in the cool air.

"It's all right," she says, "You're my fool, if not hers". And he looks her in the eye and smiles.

"What will I do about her?" he asks, wondering how he can look anyone in the face when they'll all know what Guinevere's done. Morgana shrugs, because it doesn't really matter, because maybe he loved Gwen once but he doesn't anymore, and Gwen loves Arthur but she loves Lancelot more. There's no sense in all of them being miserable because of pride: it's better by far to let it all be. A season of gossip is far less than a lifetime of grief, and Gwen has no children to complicate this change. She can leave Camelot, and Lancelot too, and they'll fake her death if they have to but it doesn't matter, because Arthur's in love with Morgana and destiny finally says it's all right for her to love him too.

He kisses her there by the willow tree and she tangles her hands in his hair, and it's not the first time they've kissed but it feels like it is anyway because it's hungry and excited and new, and they're walking into a dream but _finally_, no one's going to wake them up.

They sink down and it's damp from the rain, but it doesn't matter as he uncrosses the laces of her gown and pulls the ties from her hair. He's reverent with her in a way that he's never been with anyone else and they're breaking all the rules, but they've lived all their lives following them and now it's time to stop.

The haunting melody of a future foretold has finally fallen silent and now they never have to stop, because his lips on her skin are the sweetest redemption she could ever have had and she knows that as they come together in the air that's so _clean_ after the rain, their sins are forgiven and everything's been made new.

Like waves washing over the sand.


End file.
